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http://news.sky.com/home/uk-news/article/16188197
6:00am UK, Wednesday March 14, 2012
Thomas Moore, health correspondent
A man suffering from the deadliest form of skin cancer has told Sky News how a new drug brought him back from the brink of death.
Charlie Jones woke up two weeks ago from emergency surgery on tumours that had spread to his kidneys to be told he had a matter of hours to live. But doctors at the Christie Hospital in Manchester decided to try out a drug called vemurafenib that has only just become available.
To their amazement, his response was almost immediate. He is now much better and has returned home. "Since I've been taking the drug I have been getting stronger and stronger," he said. "I'm getting colour in my face. My body is feeling a lot better. It's helping me feel like the old me."
Vemurafenib is helping Charlie feel more like the old him Charlie and his girlfriend Louise Howard now hope to get married. She told Sky News: "You think of all the things that you still want to do together and had planned. And this drug might help us to do a bit more of that and give us more of a future together."
Vemurafenib is the first new treatment for malignant melanoma in 30 years. It targets a gene mutation found in around half of patients. And studies show it extends the average life expectancy from nine months to almost 16 months.
Dr James Larkin, a medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, ran clinical trials and watched as tumours that had spread to patient's livers shrank or even disappeared altogether.
"To have a treatment that demonstrates melanoma can be treated and controlled is a big breakthrough," he said.
"To some extent in the past there had been a perception among doctors that melanoma was somehow different and impossible to treat. This drug shows that isn't the case."
According to Cancer Research UK latest figures show around 11,800 patients a year are diagnosed with malignant melanoma. Almost 2,100 people die from the disease.
Within the next 15 years, 15,500 new cases are expected to be diagnosed each year.
Doctors describe vemurafenib as a "personalised medicine".
Instead of treating all patients with the drug and hoping some will respond, they will use a test to identify those with the gene fault in their tumours.Those testing positive will get the benefit of treatment. The rest are spared unnecessary side-effects.
And costs to the NHS are vastly reduced. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has yet to rule on whether the drug will be widely available on the NHS. But patients can apply for funding through the Cancer Drugs Fund.
I googled "vemurafenib" and this is from wiki:
Vemurafenib (INN, also known as PLX4032, RG7204 or RO5185426, marketed as Zelboraf) is a B-Raf enzyme inhibitor developed by Plexxikon (now part of the Daiichi Sankyo group) and Hoffmann–La Roche for the treatment of late-stage melanoma.[SUP][1][/SUP]
Vemurafenib received FDA approval for the treatment of late-stage melanoma on August 17, 2011,[SUP][2][/SUP] and on February 20, 2012, the European Commission approved vemurafenib as a monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with BRAF V600 mutationpositive unresectable or metastatic melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer. [SUP][3]
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vemurafenib
[/SUP]
6:00am UK, Wednesday March 14, 2012
Thomas Moore, health correspondent
A man suffering from the deadliest form of skin cancer has told Sky News how a new drug brought him back from the brink of death.
Charlie Jones woke up two weeks ago from emergency surgery on tumours that had spread to his kidneys to be told he had a matter of hours to live. But doctors at the Christie Hospital in Manchester decided to try out a drug called vemurafenib that has only just become available.
To their amazement, his response was almost immediate. He is now much better and has returned home. "Since I've been taking the drug I have been getting stronger and stronger," he said. "I'm getting colour in my face. My body is feeling a lot better. It's helping me feel like the old me."
Vemurafenib is helping Charlie feel more like the old him Charlie and his girlfriend Louise Howard now hope to get married. She told Sky News: "You think of all the things that you still want to do together and had planned. And this drug might help us to do a bit more of that and give us more of a future together."
Vemurafenib is the first new treatment for malignant melanoma in 30 years. It targets a gene mutation found in around half of patients. And studies show it extends the average life expectancy from nine months to almost 16 months.
Dr James Larkin, a medical oncologist at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, ran clinical trials and watched as tumours that had spread to patient's livers shrank or even disappeared altogether.
"To have a treatment that demonstrates melanoma can be treated and controlled is a big breakthrough," he said.
"To some extent in the past there had been a perception among doctors that melanoma was somehow different and impossible to treat. This drug shows that isn't the case."
According to Cancer Research UK latest figures show around 11,800 patients a year are diagnosed with malignant melanoma. Almost 2,100 people die from the disease.
Within the next 15 years, 15,500 new cases are expected to be diagnosed each year.
Doctors describe vemurafenib as a "personalised medicine".
Instead of treating all patients with the drug and hoping some will respond, they will use a test to identify those with the gene fault in their tumours.Those testing positive will get the benefit of treatment. The rest are spared unnecessary side-effects.
And costs to the NHS are vastly reduced. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) has yet to rule on whether the drug will be widely available on the NHS. But patients can apply for funding through the Cancer Drugs Fund.
I googled "vemurafenib" and this is from wiki:
Vemurafenib (INN, also known as PLX4032, RG7204 or RO5185426, marketed as Zelboraf) is a B-Raf enzyme inhibitor developed by Plexxikon (now part of the Daiichi Sankyo group) and Hoffmann–La Roche for the treatment of late-stage melanoma.[SUP][1][/SUP]
Vemurafenib received FDA approval for the treatment of late-stage melanoma on August 17, 2011,[SUP][2][/SUP] and on February 20, 2012, the European Commission approved vemurafenib as a monotherapy for the treatment of adult patients with BRAF V600 mutationpositive unresectable or metastatic melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer. [SUP][3]
More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vemurafenib
[/SUP]
